So this video was uploaded on April 1st (*danger! danger!*) but we've known of the Pal-V for a few years and we'll assume for the moment that the Dutch company was not aware of the risk in uploading a video of a flying car on April Fool's Day. The Pal-V, which stands for Personal Air and Land Vehicle, is actually more of a driving autogyro than a flying car, but it can drive like a car, and it can also fly, so we are definitively on board.
An autogyro is an old idea--it uses an unpowered rotor on the top of the vehicle, but it's not like a helicopter, which generates lift by blasting air downwards with it. Instead, power is provided by a smaller propellor at the rear, and the top rotor is used for pitch and yaw, more like a glider. (That also means if your power goes out, you can glide slowly to the ground.) The Pal-V, a small, one-person autogyro that also drives sort of like a three-wheeled motorcycle, leaning into turns, has been around for a few years, but it just completed and post the video of its first flight. The video:
[via Jalopnik]
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